Russian nuclear giant that built Chernobyl confirms interest in erecting generators in Britain

The Russian nuclear giant that built Chernobyl has confirmed interest in erecting generators in Britain.

Kremlin-owned Rosatom is fundamentally the same group that built the Ukrainian reactors, one of which exploded in 1986.

The blast released four hundred times more radioactive material into the Earth’s atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

And fallout from the disaster contributed to almost 1m premature cancer deaths, a leading Russian study concluded in 2004.

Now the Russian giant is turning its gaze towards Britain. In its sights are Wylfa on Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

Until recently the sites were due to
house reactors built and run by E.ON and RWE Npower. When they opened in
the 2020s, the two plants would have produced enough power to supply 5m
homes.

But the German companies pulled out last month after spiralling costs, and are now looking to sell the £16bn Horizon project.

One by one, major nuclear operators
ruled themselves out. EDF – which runs Britain’s existing plants and is
already vying to build a fleet of new reactors – said it would not buy
into the project. But now the Russian group, which was widely tipped to
be interested, has confirmed it is looking at the UK. ‘The British
market is very attractive,’ said the group’s director of communications,
Sergei Novikov.

But he offered ‘all guarantees’ that
plants ‘in the UK will meet absolutely all international safety
requirements and International Atomic Energy Agency standards’.

Rosatom builds one in six of the nuclear plants constructed around the world – including Iran’s Bushehr site.

An agreement yesterday between the UK
government and Japan ‘will open up opportunities’ for British firms to
decommission the country’s nuclear sites.